Hitchin's Badger Parade.


Yesterday saw our second mailing list pre-sale for 12th July’s rescheduled Mostly Comedy with Harry Hill that we also had to move to Hitchin Town Hall due to The Sun’s unfortunate lack of availability, though both the increased capacity and yesterday's subsequent sellout make the event the busiest and biggest in our ten-year history with over 300 people booked.

Another advantage to the show taking place in a bigger venue is it has enabled people who missed out first time around a second chance to get in (we actually received a couple of emails to this effect). While it still sold out in less than a day, tickets were available for much of it, which corroborates the theory. I’m glad this was the case as I know some people have been frustrated with how difficult it’s become to guarantee scoring tickets for our most popular events what with the increased demand, not that there's a lot we can do about it.

The only downside to the pre-sale taking place yesterday was I was in London for the day, so it was harder to keep an eye on it; I took a later train into town so I could be available for the first hour and kept looking in after that to respond to the odd query, though thankfully there wasn’t much to contend with. At least the mood was better than usual as fewer people were after tickets as so many were snapped up first time around. Now we just need to make the show work at the Town Hall. Maybe Glyn and I could resurrect the sketch we did with Peter Lilley there in 2008; watch this space...

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...
Read more

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane ...
Read more